Finally got my RangeVideo 1.3GHz electronics figured out and assembled... hooray! Here's the camera, Tx, Rx, and video monitor. I'm using a Sony DVD player that a coworker was getting rid of as the monitor. It's nice coz it's self-contained with its own battery. It has video and audio input. Just one problem, which I'll note below.
Here's the Rx side. I made a power cord so it can run off a 3S Lipo. I'm planning on using the cheap 2.2mAh Turnigys, since the current draw is minimal. The Rx is set to channel 9, 1280GHz. That's the only channel legal in the U.S. You need a Ham technical license to use it. The channel indicator is almost totally black... hard to see even with the lights off.
Notice the taped-over yellow RCA jack? I lost hours trying to troubleshoot the setup, only to find out that my replacement cable for the DVD player was wired backwards -- the audio comes through the yellow jack and the video through the black one. Troubleshooting everything was a pain, since I was integrating 4 new pieces that I had never used before. Lesson learned: check the cables first!
Here's the Tx. It's also running off a 3S. The unit gets surprisingly hot, will need to find a way to keep it cool. The camera is a Sony. I had to make a cable for it.
Here's the cable I made. The board connector is a 1.5mm pitch Molex Picoblade. Believe me, it wasn't easy to find that out! The camera vendor sold double-ended pigtails. Of course they didn't mention that anywhere, so it added about a month to research this and have the cable sent. I snipped it in half and put a servo-style connector so that it would fit the RangeVideo cable harness.
I took the chance to measure the power consumption. Subtracting the base usage of the watt meter (.3A, 4.0W at 12V), I measured the following numbers (all at 12V, which is what both the Tx and Rx use:
Rx: 0.3A, 3.7V
Tx + cam: 0.3A, 3.0V
cam (no Tx): 0.1A, .5W
Here's another shot of the camera cable. Hansen Hobbies sells the Pico connector but currently doesn't sell the crimping tool. I ordered some connectors anyways... I'll see if there's any other way to crimp them.
Here's my power cable. I snipped off the 2.1MM power connector from an old wall wart and soldered it onto an XT60 connector. If you toss any old wall warts be sure and save this piece! Be careful to get your polarity right as well.
